The Changing Perception of 'Disability'

by Kristina Rhoades

We’re living in an exciting time. Technology is advancing faster than ever before. Smart phones, tablets and the like give us instant access to unlimited resources and information. The mainstream media is changing and beginning to incorporate a more diverse representation of the human population. Innovators and entrepreneurs are busy creating products and businesses that are changing lives.

While many people are benefiting from today’s modern innovations and evolving mentalities, the effects on the disability community are even more profound. Advances in technology are not only saving lives, but they are opening up possibilities and opportunities that may have previously been unreachable by people with certain disabilities. Mobility devices, for example, are allowing those with physical challenges to move within their homes and gain access to their communities like never before (and with some style, at that).

The Internet has played a huge role in connecting and empowering the disability community. In this day and age, seemingly unlimited resources are available right at our fingertips, including information on someone’s specific disability and everything related to it. By using social media and other online forums, one can seek out therapy options, support groups or other individuals that share similar experiences. People who may have felt alone in the past now have access to helpful knowledge, companionship and inspiration.

The media’s role in changing the perception of disability is also quite significant. In just the past couple years, people with disabilities have been much more represented in entertainment, including television and print media. Audiences fell in love with a wheelchair-using character on Glee and the Sundance Channel’s docudrama, Push Girls, continues to win awards as viewers follow the lives of 5 dynamic, daring and beautiful women in wheelchairs. Finally, young people with disabilities have real role models that actually look like them and share their challenges.

As mass amounts of people continue to be educated and inspired by what they’re seeing on TV, or on the web, or at their local grocery store, the old stereotype of the “disabled person” is slowly being chipped away and redefined. I often hear disability advocates say that there’s still so much to be done and that may very well be true. However, I think we’ve made some incredible progress in the recent years and I can say, as a person with a disability, that it’s better now that it ever has been. And I know we’re just getting started.